To find out that this culture of death is now leading to the sale – this is no different than what happened in Nazi Germany. No different than doing the experiments on the old men and old women and now doing them on the babies.

The Iran nuclear weapons deal: Mike Huckabee ("will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.")

The meat industry and other abusers of animals: Russell Simmons ("There were people for slavery, remember? Almost everybody. Slavery was fine. There's people that put people in ovens…. You're asking me, do I think that people who are unconscious to the suffering they cause to 100 billion animals–the worst holocaust in the history of humankind, the suffering of animals, the abuse of animals, and yes you're all guilty in my opinion…. [Y]ou don't like the word holocaust? It's a fucking holocaust.")

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The Nazis really did start with killing off the sick, weak and unwanted. So yes, saying it is okay to kill children in the womb is analogous. And giving $150 billion dollars and access to long range missile technology to a country with a nuclear program that has vowed to wipe Israel off the map is asking for another holocaust only this time with open air ovens burning the bodies.

The problem with Godwin is that assumes that nothing could ever be analogous to the Nazis and sadly some things are.

The problem with Godwin is that assumes that nothing could ever be analogous to the Nazis and sadly some things are.

The problem with Godwin’s Law is that people believe that it says that Nazi comparisons are inaccurate when all Godwin said was that the longer an Internet conversation goes on, the greater the odds that someone mentions Nazis.

Godwin probably gets misquoted on the Internet more than the Dalai Lama.

No, the problem with Godwin is that no one seems to know (or perhaps care) what he really said about Nazi comparisons and internet arguments.

The problem with comparing things to Nazis isn’t that it is never an apt comparison, it is that it turns people off and gets you no where with people who don’t already agree with you. And it is often used in stupid ways.

The thing is, the Liberal Intellectual Radical Progressive establishment gets hot under the collar when somebody compares Abortionists or Iran to the Nazis, but thinks this kind of blather about animal cruelty is just fine. This strongly suggests that the LIRPs think of farm animals as thinking, feeling beings with rights comparable to those of humans ? and don’t feel that way about little black fetuses and Jews.

1) Just because people make bad Nazi analogies doesn’t mean that good Nazi analogies can’t be made.

2) The holocaust was certainly the worst thing the Nazis ever did, but it wasn’t the only rotten thing they did. Listening to some people (not Matt Welch), you might think if it weren’t the for the holocaust, then the Nazis would have been okay.

In reference to Point 2, for instance, the Nazis used the Reichstag Fire as a pretense to curb civil liberties. If you don’t want to be compared to the Nazis in that regard, then a good way to avoid that is to not use tragedies like 9/11 as an excuse to attack our civil liberties.

) The holocaust was certainly the worst thing the Nazis ever did, but it wasn’t the only rotten thing they did. Listening to some people (not Matt Welch), you might think if it weren’t the for the holocaust, then the Nazis would have been okay.

That is because if most Progressives were honest, they would think the Nazis were okay absent the Holocaust.

The quote of the year so far was from a blogger yesterday named Moe Lane. In response to hearing the Bernie Sanders is for closing the borders he asked; “So what do you call a socialist who is not an internationalist?”.

Psst, John, an article about how ridiculous nazi analogies are generally isn’t the best place to ponder about your leading intellectual insight– you know, the one about how liberals in Congress are Nazis

No, they are fascists. There is a difference. And absent the holocaust there isn’t a single thing about Hitler’s economic views that liberals would object. They wouldn’t even object to the war making. They would just object to Germans doing it. Nazism was as much as anything a cult of German victimhood. And liberals love nothing better but a victim and someone to blame.

You are part of a fascist movement. You have the same tactics and the same total commitment to the state and collective guilt and scapegoating. You just haven’t gotten the blood and soil aspect, though that part is coming.

“And absent the holocaust there isn’t a single thing about Hitler’s economic views that liberals would object.”

Not only Hitler’s economic views, but his social policies as well. Hitler was a dedicated non smoker and was among the first to discourage smoking among the population. His policies didn’t go nearly as far as the Liberal regimes of today, but he deserves recognition for getting the ball rolling. Smokers seeking freedom these days are forced to turn to regimes like North Korea, where the sacred freedom to smoke is still cherished.

The eugenics link is pretty weak tea these days. Progressives have long-since given up removing undesirables from mankind’s evolutionary destiny. They embrace former “undesirables” and many beside as worthy political clients. The new undesirables are climate change deniers, second amendment advocates, religious purveyors, home schoolers, pro-lifers, etc., and their new tactic involves bureaucratic harassment and censorship. If they had the chance they’d start incarcerating.

Progressives have long-since given up removing undesirables from mankind’s evolutionary destiny.

I’ve been reading (don’t know if its verified or not), that more blacks are aborted than born in NYC these days.

Of course, this gets into intentionality, I suppose, but it strikes me as at least plausible that abortion, which was originally part of their eugenics program, is continuing on as a sort of zombie eugenics program. Based on results.

Progressives haven’t been pro-eugenics for decades. If anything they, like libertarians, favor dysgenics. Fewer Europeans and East Asians, more black Africans and Amerindians. Because Brazil is obviously the model we should be shooting for.

I would bet that more non-combatants died because they invaded the Soviet Union than because they ran death camps for undesirables. I could be wrong, but its entirely possible that invading the Soviets was the worst thing they did, if we are going purely on body count.

This isn’t to deny that there is moral dimension to death camps, just that reflexively saying the holocaust was the worst thing did may or may not get us to the right answer.

Suffice it to say that in addition to the holocaust, the Nazis did a lot of other terrible things that weren’t specifically holocaust related, and if people who aren’t trying to bring back the holocaust don’t want to be accused of acting like the Nazis in various other non-holocaust ways, then they should avoid doing the same things the Nazis did.

The Nazis banned “deviant art”, for instance. Just because some group of people isn’t advocating that 6 million Jews should be burned in ovens doesn’t mean that they can’t be compared to the Nazis if and when they advocate banning “deviant art”.

Another pet peeve, bringing up the Nazis is not in itself a slipper slope argument. The Nazis aren’t just awful because of the results of what they did–their methods, motives, and qualitative preferences are all perfectly legitimate subjects for criticism, too.

Sure, “never let a crisis go to waste”, the “Big Lie”, attempts to censor criticism, etc. are all used by our politicians to curb civil liberties and enhance their power. Godwin really only applies when the analogy is used inappropriately.

“Godwin really only applies when the analogy is used inappropriately.”

I agree with WTF here, and would only add the somewhat obvious “? and when the debater has to resort to hyperbole because he or she is out of cogent points” (or perhaps refuses to acknowledge the other side’s salient points).

Wilson gets bonus points for being a big part of the Paris 1919 Peace Conference and helping to create dozens of long-term foreign policy problems. Hell, it takes skill to piss off both China and Japan in the same conference.

“My grandfather, a psychologist, just walked me through similarities between Walker and Hitler. There are so many ? it’s terrifying.”

Call me cynical, but I don’t buy that progs believe half of the Hitler comparisons they make. They routinely compare Republican politicians to Hitler and yet they don’t do anything, they just talk. Either they’re lying for effect, or they’re effectively saying “yeah, this guy’s like Hitler and I’m going to stick around and be like one of the Germans complicit in the Nazi regime”

Everything they say is a lie. So yes, they don’t believe that. No one is that stupid and delusional and not living in a box or locked up. Two things are going on. First, they are just lazy and stupid and calling someone “Hitler” is just what they do out of habit. Second, they inflate their own sense of importance by grossly inflating the threat posed by their enemies. If Walker is just a politician with different views, then Professor Rab is just a partisan hack scoring points. If Walker is the next Hitler, however, then Rab is fighting a brave and noble fight against evil. The more important and evil your enemy, the more important and noble you are. And Hitler is the definition of important and evil. They really are this childish.

One of the most popular thought experiments is the old “would you go back in time to kill Hitler?” Evidently a prog would go back in time to express disapproval of Hitler. Then, of course, quickly hop back into the time machine to avoid consequences. So brave!

Eh, pro-lifers say “fetus are babies and abortion is murder on the scale of the holocaust” and also say “we condemn violence against abortionists”. So, what, they would also condemn anyone who tried blowing up Nazi death camp personnel?

Now Planned Parenthood is on the ropes…first they said the transactions on the tape were perfectly normal and legal, then they said don’t air it because – though it’s perfectly normal and legal – it violates medical privacy…now finally they’ve reached Step 3 – find some prolifers who used rhetorical excesses in describing the sale of aborted baby parts.

Because we all know that the most important part of this trafficking-in-baby-parts story is that some of the people who didn’t like the trafficking violated Godwin’s Law in expressing their condemnation. The baby-parts-trafficking itself isn’t the problem, no sir.

I do like how the story is not going away despite the best efforts of the Clinton’s to obfuscate and delay, which is their preferred method to dealing with potentially embarrassing stories that seem to occur every day.

Hot damn read the comment of John M Browning….best line “Most of the liberals and pseudo-anarchists I’ve encountered can barely manage getting 3 full bags of gluten free vegan products home from Whole Foods on their bicycle, let alone devise the military operation necessary for the killing and disposal of millions of enemy personel.”

One man’s “Iran Deal” is another man’s Marketing Campaign for US weaponry.

Because frankly, we’ve been carrying way too much of the load in the perpetual Middle-East war, and think Israel is like waaaaaay overdue for one, particularly for all the military subsidies we’ve provided them over the last 3 decades.

So, really – a better-funded and (sorta) less-nuclear Iran that’s prone to Moar War with its neighbors is like a huge win-win from certain perspectives.

(*note = while what is described is highly accurate as to the facts and incentives involved, encouraging an Israel+Saudi/Iranian conflict is actually Epic Stupid that makes the Iraq war seem comparatively ‘smart’)

Careful reading of your article reveals that the guys making comments about Planned Parenthood and a game-changing peace deal made between Iran and Fascist Obama were made by a sitting congressman and a serious contender for the Republican party’s nominee, respectively. Coversly,, the comments made about scott walker and meat eating were made by some professor I’ve never heard of and a British guy I see occasionally on TV, who mad a movie about what’s it like to take a cocktail of lsd, ketamine, ecstasy, cocaine, and pcp.

When I was travelling in Thailand there was this tourist t-shirt that said “different, but same.” I ended up buying the one that said “different, but different.” I kind of see your comparison like that.

That, and this is American ‘Whitewash Soviet Atrocities’ Socialist. Of course he’s going to focusing on the Republicans and try to hand-wave anyone slightly to the left. This is guy who lectures everyone here on ‘principles’ and then time and time again he shows he has none by failing to hold leftists to the same standard he does the right. I mean, there’s no better way to kill your credibility that such blatant hypocrisy.

The first “National Socialist” party in history was actually a Czech nationalist party in the Habsburg Empire, based on the idea of sharing the wealth with other Czechs and fucking over the Germans and Jews who lived in Bohemia. Hitler and his pals just stole the concept and promoted Germans instead of Czechs.

I would say that Left-wingers who make comparisons about conservatives and Nazis sound just as delusional, idiotic, and unhinged as libertarians and conservatives sound when they make comparisons between Leftists and totalitarian communists.

He claims to be old libertarian, back when modern ‘libertarianism’ was classical liberalism. Of course, this is still utterly hilarious because he’s ideologically ignorant of their positions too. AS, Libertarian socialists reject political systems of authority you moron, so you praising Sanders and supporting a state-based platform is the exact opposite. If he actually was one he wouldn’t be bothering with politics and forming voluntary communes.

unhinged as libertarians and conservatives sound when they make comparisons between Leftists and totalitarian communists.

See, and this is why your credibility is garbage. AS, you don’t get to praise the Soviet Union, ignore their brutality and massacres, and then pretend that the ‘libertarians and conservatives’ are out to get you. You defended a totalitarian regime and their massacres, the ‘libertarians and conservatives’ did nothing but point out what an utter piece of shit you are for defending them.

Well, Left-wingers who make comparisons about conservatives and Nazis sound much more delusional, idiotic, and unhinged because the National Socialist German Workers Party were not right-wing or conservative. Whereas socialists are in fact left-wing.

The Nazis were certainly perceived as “right wing” and conservative by almost every contemporary German. Most people aren’t purists on economic issues, it is more about “what’s in it for me”, and German conservatives felt Hitler was making them the best offer. To this day most right wing parties in Europe are anti-free market on all sorts of issues. They all love Putin, who is as statist as they come. Same in South America and Asia. Hell, a lot of American social conservatives act more anti-free market than they admit. America (and the Soviet Union) are the historical weird outliers where you are expected to a pass a purity test on your economic ideology, whether socialist or libertarian.

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that “right-wing” means the same thing everywhere. The European right is pretty different from the American right. Nazis were violent collectivists. Commies were violent collectivists. I don’t care whether you want to call either of them left or right.

Sure, but all your saying is Europeans call right and left different then Americans, which doesn’t really say much at all. If you call a socialist right wing then I would ask for your definition of right wing. Usually I get the answer because they were racists. Okay, so all racists are right wing, that’s not historically accurate, and it isn’t true. So once again we get to what is “right wing.”

Unless I hear a good answer I’m going with them being socialists, which is not right wing.

It really isn’t that hard. The right-wing/conservatives represents the interests of the owners of capital, including property owners such as farmers. The left wing represents employed labor. Everything else follows from that. The Nazis were conservatives because they were defending the interests of the existing (ethnic German) owners of German capital. They did not expropriate private property from German industrialists the way socialists would have. They supported private farming, and even went on an expedition to add milions of hectares of Polish and Soviet land for Germans to settle and own. Capitalists/property owners are not always in favor of free markets. In Europe lots of property belongs to vested interests such as aristocrats, religious institutions and family farmers who view the goal of a conservative party as managing the state to protect them from competition and defend their property from newcomers.

It really isn’t that hard. The right-wing/conservatives represents the interests of the owners of capital, including property owners such as farmers. The left wing represents employed labor. Everything else follows from that. The Nazis were conservatives because they were defending the interests of the existing (ethnic German) owners of German capital. They did not expropriate private property from German industrialists the way socialists would have. They supported private farming, and even went on an expedition to add milions of hectares of Polish and Soviet land for Germans to settle and own. Capitalists/property owners are not always in favor of free markets. In Europe lots of property belongs to vested interests such as aristocrats, religious institutions and family farmers who view the goal of a conservative party as managing the state to protect them from competition and defend their property from newcomers.

And again Amsoc, you don’t get to praise the Soviet Union, whitewash its atrocities, and then claim the moral high ground by saying no one else gets to talk about it or call you on your behaviour. That’s the sign of a childish coward hiding from his positions.

You lecture people here on principles but you refuse to hold yourself to any kind of standard. Either grow up or take a seat with Buttplug and Bo at the kiddies table.

When did I ever say that I supported the Soviet Union or state communism? I did say people in Russia and the Eastern Bloc were being sold a bill of goods in the 1980s. They endured a decade or two of economic collapse before things got back to the way they were in1985 to prove my point.

When did I ever say that I supported the Soviet Union or state communism?

Right here, you moron. Do you not realize that when you write things here it stays as public record? You don’t get to pull a Stalin and erase anything you don’t like.

So, again, you praised a totalitarian system and whitewashed their atrocities, and now you’re acting like ‘libertarians and conservatives’ are just bullying you when they point out that’s exactly what you do. Guess what, AS, when you actually say the things people are accusing you of saying, it makes their comments legitimate and entirely right.

But again, we’ve established that you’re a childish coward, so I don’t expect you to hold yourself to any kind of standard. Now please, lecture everyone here on principles so we can all see what a petty, pathetic loser with zero self awareness you are.

Yeah, I know. the Soviet Union transformed a backwards monarchy into a world super power, almost single-handedly defeated hitlerean fascism, brought about universal literacy, gave women the right to vote, legalized abortion 18 years before the US, put the first man in space, put the first women in space, championed anti-colonialist movements worldwide. Other than that it was a bad idea.

Just for the record, 1. the Russian Empire pre-1918 was one of the leading economic and cultural powers in the world. The regime was backwards and disfunctional but Russian society was more dynamic prior to WWI than it has ever been since. 2. Stalin and Hitler were allies from 1939 to 1941 so there has to be a big asterisk next to “defeating Hitler”. 3. Literacy rates were already climbing rapidly before the Russian revolution. The USSR did improve literacy dramatically in Central Asia, at the cost of destroying most of the local culture and elite literary traditions. Not sure if progressives should be so happy about that. 4. Right to vote in sham elections, sure 5. Ok. Birth control is far more humane, but enjoy those abortions in shitty clinics performed by drunken doctors. 6.Yes 7. Yes 8. Except in its own expansive empire.

This is a picture of a person sick with Miyamiya ? see the swollen joints ? said to be contracted if you disturb the stones of a sacred site downstream from Ubirr near the East Alligator River. Aboriginal rock art, Kakadu National Park, NT, Australia

Aboriginal people are very concerned about people disturbing certain sites, and often with good reason. There have been a number of connections drawn between such sites and the subsequent discovery of substances dangerous to people like uranium.

Eh, 3 of those aren’t really that bad, assuming you buy into a certain moral or factual premise.

Morally, if you think animals have the same moral status as people (clearly they aren’t in terms of intelligence and the like, but neither are the severely mentally disabled), the meat industry is an ongoing holocaust of Nazi-esque proportions. Same deal for the fetus meat industry.

If you think Iran will actually use nuclear weapons against Israel, rather than just to shore up more conventional power, then Huckabee’s assertion isn’t an invalid comparison — the Iran deal would, in that case, be enabling genocidal lunatics to murder millions of Jews.

In each case, if you don’t like it, the problem is the premise, not the analogy.

That’s a pretty good point. Though I’m still not so sure about the Iran one. Jews in Europe were a not-too-well-regarded minority with little power to defend themselves, many of whom lived within the country that wanted to murder them. Israel has proven quite capable of defending itself.

Depends on what you mean by ‘wreck’ and the actual megatons of the nukes. If its just Hiroshima size (doubtful considering Pakistan’s nukes are massive in comparison to the old WW2 atomic bomb) you’re still taking out a good chunk of Tel Aviv, and if its a ground burst you create a lot more localized fallout.

Not much (if they get good missiles). But what are the odds that Israel just sits there and lets Iran build nuclear weapons?

I honestly don’t have much of an opinion on the recent Iran deal. Something shitty will probably happen and i just hope that it doesn’t involve us having a war with Iran. Just saying that the asymmetry that made the Holocaust possible doesn’t exist between Iran and Israel and that makes today’s situation rather different. And Israel is already ahead of Iran on nukes, so some sort of MAD situation seems somewhat likely if Iran does get nukes. Which isn’t great, but isn’t the Holocaust either.

so some sort of MAD situation seems somewhat likely if Iran does get nukes.

What my fear is is that MAD only works with secular states. Even Israel isn’t secular as we would understand the term. And it certainly doesn’t help that Islamic eschatology reads like a Nostradamus prophecy concerning nuclear weapons, complete with Mecca being engulf in a fireball and a wind spreading across the land making people ill and causing death.

How do they stack up against WW2 Japan, would you say? I mean, we had “suicide bombers” in the sense of the kamikaze pilots, and a fanatical devotion to the country and its ruler.

On the other hand, that still leads to a desire to protect the country from being wiped out, whereas Allah will still be Allah even if everyone on the planet is annihilated in global nuclear holocaust.

That’s a legitimate concern, I think. I may well be overly optimistic (it does happen), but I am inclined to think that the leaders of Iran prefer power to eschatology and that most of the people just want to get on with their lives.

I think the larger concern is the Saudis. They are very broadly united with ISIS against the Shia. They have the backing of the neocon part of the US foreign policy apparatus. When the neocons invariably return to power (probably with whatever GOP idiot the voters select because 8 years has soured then on donkeys), the Saudis will try to make sure they get nukes to balance out Iranian power.

Now, they won’t use nukes themselves, but I wonder if they would be bold enough to sneak them to ISIS and wash their hands of whatever happens next.

Yeah, ‘ISIS is rolling with Saudi Arabia’ is a bit of old news now. They do likely have wealthy citizens donating to ISIS that they aren’t trying to get under control, but Saudi Arabia liked ISIS a lot more when they were just causing trouble for the local non-Sunni leaders. Now they’re rolling around Iraq and claiming Spain, and the Saudis have no intention of jumping into a new Caliphate unless they control it.

I’m glad these pundits have the intellectual honesty not to compare these atrocities to the doings of Chairman Mao Zedong. Certainly tens of millions died due to his heavy handed and crackpot notions of agricultural reform. Just as certainly however, millions of lives were saved through Mao’s programmes of hygiene, public sanitation and health care such as the barefoot doctors.

“I heard that Mao’s reforms of the Tiedaobu were equally beneficial in the field of time management.”

Maybe you listen to too many Communists. A lot of Mao’s reforms were ignored. Even by the work units which made up the nation’s rail system. Mao tried to institute daylight savings time and was forced to abandon the idea after the chaos which ensued from only some of the populace adopting the plan, with most of the nation ignoring it. Their health care reforms were far more successful and universally embraced. Check into any hotel in China today, no matter how remote, and you’ll find a fresh thermos flask of ‘kai shui’ – boiled water, usually a cup and maybe a bag or two of mediocre tea, all part of the service.

Check into any hotel in China today, no matter how remote, and you’ll find a fresh thermos flask of ‘kai shui’ – boiled water, usually a cup and maybe a bag or two of mediocre tea, all part of the service.

I’m not offering an actual wager. You see, in American English, colloquialisms such as “I bet” are sometimes used to express that the speaker has a high level of certainty regarding the outcome of a situation based on available facts. Therefore, when i say “I bet you’re under the delusion that you are a good person who has something to offer the world,” i am not really offering to gamble with you as to whether or not you believe you are a good person, let alone whether or not that belief is delusional. I am merely expressing that, based on what you’ve posted here and elsewhere, any such belief you may have as to the goodness of your own nature would seem to be a delusion. It may very well be that you labor under no such apprehensions, and do not consider yourself a good person; or it may be that you genuinely do not believe that your tendency to explain and excuse really horrible instances of totalitarian violence is really such a bad thing. I am not interested in getting to know you as a person in order to find out which it is. Maybe the six people who follow your blog could tell me, but i don’t really care enough to ask.

” your tendency to explain and excuse really horrible instances of totalitarian violence is really such a bad thing”

Read again. I’m not explaining or excusing anything. I’m simply pointing out another crime of Mao, his health and hygiene reforms. Think of Obamacare. What Mao did was every bit as intrusive and paternalistic.

Just as certainly however, millions of lives were saved through Mao’s programmes of hygiene, public sanitation and health care such as the barefoot doctors.

And mtrueman is legitimately stupid enough to ignore the fact that Mao is responsible for the propagation of ‘traditional Chinese medicine’, a quarkery responsible for the deaths of a great deal of Chinese people.

And it was done for the most cynical bullshit reason ever: they didn’t have enough real doctors, but they wanted to look like they had a really good public health system that idiots like mtrueman would praise. Mao didn’t believe in traditional Chinese medicine, he didn’t use it, but it was good enough for the proles as long as he looked good.

” to ignore the fact that Mao is responsible for the propagation of ‘traditional Chinese medicine'”

I’m not ignoring that at all. For many thousands of years Malaria took the lives of Chinese. This stopped under Mao thanks to the aforementioned policies, including the use of artemisinin a traditional Chinese antimalarial drug which researchers studied under more rigourous modern methods during the time of the cultural revolution. These days, western drug companies are busy developing artemisinin based medicines for malaria and other maladies.

Have you heard of artemisinin? It’s a traditional Chinese medicine that modern western drug companies deem worthy of further research and development. Do you know something they don’t? I suspect not, but am willing to listen.

Have you heard of the rest of the Chinese pharmacopoeia? It’s pretty huge and detailed, and it’s not surprising that it contains a nugget or two of actual medically beneficial information. I’m not sure how draining the blood from an endangered golden turtle and drinking it prolongs one’s lifespan, though.

The only traditional Chinese medicine I’m willing to recommend is a cup of hot ginger tea with unrefined sugar at the first sign of cold symptoms. I’ve found this works to prevent a full blown cold sometimes. A shot of 5 penis brandy is also nice before a hearty meal.

Have you heard of the literal thousands of traditional Chinese remedies that are pure quarkery and used to treat serious, even deadly diseases? Seriously, screaming ‘artemisinin! artemisinin!’ does actually counter the point of promoting thousands of cures that don’t work and result in the long term suffering and deaths of patients. You held up Mao’s healthcare work as a positive example. I have addressed how he negatively promoted medicine that doesn’t work that has resulted in suffering and death. You have failed to disprove this argument.

Address the actual argument, not the made up one you think is easier to attack.

Can you provide the name of one of these thousands of cures that was promoted under Mao’s reforms? You appear to agree with me that artemisinin is an example of a promising traditional Chinese medicine. I’d like to know which are the promoted medicines that resulted in suffering and death.

Can you provide the name of one of these thousands of cures that was promoted under Mao’s reforms?

You are aware that traditional Chinese medicine include the use of known toxic components like arsenic sulfide and mercury sulfide right? And for the record, these are substances the bloody Greeks knew were toxic. So Mao’s impressive modern healthcare promotes the use of toxins that were established as bad in the classical period. That regression is impressive.

Again, you seem to think that one promising medicine is some amazing argument against peddling literal poison, when it’s not, it’s just one promising medicine surrounded by thousands of things that don’t work or actively harm the patient. Someone spray painted a blade of grass black and you’re there screaming ‘this field is black’ surrounded by green.

mtrueman, you have spend this entire time showing how utterly unaware you are of actual Chinese medicine if it doesn’t confirm to your foolish argument. In fact, you seem to actively ignore anything that contradicts your point. You being unaware of something is not surprising at all.

But it’s not actual Chinese medicine I was talking about. Read again, and you will find I’ve been discussing the health and hygiene reforms under Mao. And it’s you who seem to be claiming that promotion of mercury as a medicine was a part of these reforms. Do you still stand by this, or have you sensibly climbed down. No shame in admitting ignorance about a topic so exotic as this.

Mtrueman has spent the past ten years eating small amounts of mercury in an attempt to gain immortality. What it’s really done is mush up his brain to the point where he thinks its a clever argument to suggest that unsupported hypothetical lives saved somehow makes the deaths of tens of millions of people any less important.

So as long as you help some people out, mass murder is OK? I’m not so sure about that. I’m sure Nazis improved some things about life in Germany too (well, until the war effort fucked everyone over). And who knows, maybe sewing up rats into living people provided some useful medical knowledge. And the trains ran on time. And they were snappy dressers. So Nazis aren’t all bad.

No, it’s not OK. But if you want to understand communism, concentrating on the murderous end of the equation will only get you so far. Their penchant for paternalism and social engineering can have disasterous consequences. What’s your opinion of Mao’s hygiene and health reforms?

They are about as unlibertarian as you can imagine, but nobody here has bothered to denounce them. Are you willing to ‘give them a pass’ because of the millions of lives saved? To rephrase your question – “”So as long as you help some people out, social engineering is OK?”

To rephrase your question – “”So as long as you help some people out, social engineering is OK?”

And again, you’re legitimately so stupid that you don’t realize that deaths under Mao and his social engineering agenda are one and the same. Mao’s social engineering killed millions of people, but you’re here attempting to argue that it was ‘good’. No, it resulted in the deaths of millions of people. Your question is moronic because your premises are moronic. Mao’s social engineering wasn’t ‘OK’ and didn’t ‘help out’ the people who died, so your question is inherently built on a delusion.

I am only observing that the communist health reforms saved untold millions of lives.

And that’s utterly unsupported, and is a number you have literally made up because you want it to compare to the millions of people killed. And when someone points out that medical reforms of Mao actively promote suffering and death, the opposite of what you claim, it’s ‘lalala doesn’t exist because I can’t question my premises’.

In order to accept your premises, you have to utterly ignore the massive amounts of completely unscientific insanity that floated around the medical fields of communist countries, or the actual quality of the medical treatment given. So basically, we have to deny reality to support your argument.

“And that’s utterly unsupported, and is a number you have literally made up because you want it to compare to the millions of people killed.”

Don’t you mean the hundreds of millions of people killed? That’s what the sensible libertarians on this page are telling me. If you disagree with them, take it up with them or I will consider you a useful idiot of communism. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck…

“you have to utterly ignore the massive amounts of completely unscientific insanity that floated around the medical fields of communist countries”

Again, I’m discussing the health and hygiene reforms under Mao. What happened in other regimes, even communist ones, is not relevant. You might want to take it easy on the mercury.

My favorite part of the Huckster’s comment is that supposedly he’s been to Auschwitz three times, like that makes him an authority to make these comments on historical parallels, and he says “marched to the door of the oven.”

In reality the Jews (and others) taken to Auschwitz were forced off the train and sent immediately to the gas chambers, not the ovens.. The corpses were put in the ovens. The ovens were not used for execution. The point was efficiency (e.g. “how can me will the most Jews and political dissidents the quickest?”), which is why more concentration camps were built and the existing ones expanded as the war went on; because the Einsatz Gruppen (death squads) were extremely inefficient and even the Nazi leaders saw what it was doing to the young men carrying out the executions.

If a political party arose in the United States that was like the Nazis in every way–except that they never advocated the holocaust and specifically denounced the holocaust–would it be alright to compare them to the Nazis? What if they spoke German, wore Nazi uniforms, marched under the swastika banner, and did everything else the Nazis did?

Would it be wrong to compare them to the Nazis–just because they didn’t also want to perpetrate a holocaust against Jews?

I say comparisons are valid insofar as they’re valid–even if you’re comparing something or someone to the Nazis.

“If a political party arose in the United States that was like the Nazis in every way–except that they never advocated the holocaust and specifically denounced the holocaust–”

Let’s no forget that even the Nazis never advocated the holocaust. All through the 30s Nazi functionaries worked on solutions that were less atrocious. Adolf Eichmann for example went so far as to visit Haifa, I believe, to meet Zionists there and discuss a population transfer. Of course at the start of the war, the German’s put into effect policies to ethnically cleanse their newly acquired territories, but the Holocaust (of the Schindler’s list variety) was never really planned or advocated until 1942 when the war started to turn against them. Had the Germans actually won the war handily in a timely fashion, I wonder if there would have been a holocaust.